672 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[April 2, 1894I 
for. The chief handicap on Chioa tea is, however, 
the heavy Ipkin oharges to which it is Kabjocted 
and the txpeneive trantpirt ; but the Govertiment 
IB apathetic in the ma'ter, makine no effort to 
■ave the trade, and even Sir Robert Hart some years 
ae;o pronounced against any reduction in the duty. 
Foreigners therefore can only look on helplesfly while 
the trade dwindlps away. To them the matter is a 
fieriouB one, however insignificant it may appear to 
the Chinese. Fortunes are no longer to be made in 
the China tea trade, a bare liviriji^ being almost all 
that those still engacied in it can hop<) to earn. 
There is a diminished trade, with smaller profits, 
and more mouths to share them. As Mr. Farago 
says in the Foochow report, " Owins; to tlie dim- 
iniahrd profits on tea several of the lari;e mer- 
cantile houses keeping a number of employes vteie 
compelled to close their doors. In many cases, 
hewever, the withdrawal of large firms led to the 
establishmeot of ore or two minor houtea doing simi- 
lar (tusioess, but on a mora modest scale. Although, 
therefore, the extent of buiiness now done by 
foreigners is fully fifly per cent, less than at thn 
bsginning of the decade, the numerical strength of 
firms is greater at present than it was ten years 
»go." At Fooohow, at all events, whatever may have 
been the case at some ports, there has been no 
development of any other branch of commerce to 
make up for the tea trade, so far as foreigners are 
concerned. No new article of export has made its 
appearance, while as tn the import trade Mr. Farago 
tells U9 that "the effort to oust foreigners from 
every branch of trade has, in the ca<e of cotton 
and woollen goods, been euooestfu'; the last representa- 
tive of a foreign hon? engaged in the piece goods 
trade was withdrawn prior to 1882, and the business 
now remains entirely in native hands." " Old Foo- 
ehow," whose boast it used to be that it was " the 
moat aristocratic port in China," seeme indeed to be 
in a very bad way. 
THE DECLINE IN THE TEA TRADE OF 
FOOCHOW AND AMOY. 
Mr. B. Farago, Commissioner of Cnstoms at Foo- 
chow, in bis aecennial report gives the fellow-gloomy 
account of the tea trade : — 
In regard to the pursuits of the people, ao far as 
can be gathered from the only information available, 
it is to be feared that, instead of material progress 
there baa been • steady decline, and that in point 
of resources and commeroiil activity the outlook ia 
not so promising as it was 10 years ago. The tea 
industry, for instance, which ranked for many yeara 
BB the most important in the province has during 
the decade commenced a receding conrre. This is 
the more to be regretted aa the onltivation of tea 
did not involve an unusual expenditure of labour 
thongb it required, during the aeason of picking the 
exercise of patient care and experienced judgment. 
It left also a large part of the year free for other 
ocoapatioDSi and, best of all, was tolerably certain 
to be remunerative. It was so attractive and profitable 
that families would follow the same pursuit from 
generation to generation. Oace in possession of a 
enitable plot of land, the only necessary step was to 
eet oat the young plants and leave them to grow. 
No expense for fertilisers was incurred, but, aa a 
sort of substitute, in the spring of each year the 
soil around the roots was loosened. At the end of 
three years from the time of setting out, the leaves 
■were fit to be picked and prepared for market. For 
years past, however, the baainess has been in a de- 
clining state, and to illu, .'ate its present condition it 
]s only necessary to ea attention to the figures 
eho'wing the exf ort of black tea to foreien countries, 
namely, 1882. 649,755 piculs ; 1891, 335,651 piculs. 
The history and cause of the decline have been 
reviewed at length in eash of the annual Trade Re- 
ports for the past 10 yenrs, and need not be referred 
to here, except to record the face that the marked 
falling off in the quantity of tea exported from Foachow, 
consequent upon its deterioration in quality and the 
in»bility to Uy it doffn in the home markets at a co^t . 
that would enable it to ooioplete suoee^sfully with 
Ibe products of o'her tea-irowine countries con- 
stitutes the molt important change thai baa occarrad 
in the province durin? tU« last 10 year", in so far Sb 
ilR far-reaching eSects on both the material prosperity 
of the people and the retoarces of the Orovernmeut 
are concrter'. 
Although the amoant of c»pit'»l now employed in 
the tea trade h much less than formerly, it eanoot 
be aFcertained that it has been dirv>cted to the pro- 
motion of other branches of industry whose home it 
in this province. There are various local ei'erpriaet, 
each as the gr'iwtb and curing of tobaooo, the mana- 
faoturo of paper, ani the importation of suftar, oil, 
cotton, aud woslen piece goods etc., whioh have been 
in exivteooe for many yeara, but which have not aft 
with sufficient appreciation, either bera or at other 
places in the province, to indicate • grovcitig demaod 
and to warrant the employment of inorea«e4 c«i>ilal. 
Not less di»conra({ing i< the report given by Mr. T. 
F. Hughes, the Commissioner at Amoy, who writes : — 
The decav in our local tea trade is certainly the 
most notable circnm»tance in connexion wi'h the 
recent mercantile history of this port ; its heginniog 
dates from a period anterior to 1k82, luit the dowa- 
ward progress has bf-en more marhed during the 
p«Ht 10 years. A feeble improvcnent took place ia 
1885, when it was thooelit that th» French operation* 
in North Formosa would interfere with the Tameui 
exp'^rt, and when there was, in oons'-queuce, an extra 
demand for the Amoy product. Bat the improvement 
was found to b« merely transient ; it waa only lihe 
the spasmodic fliclter of an expiring lamp, making 
things look bright for a fleeting reriod. but giving 
no earnest of a vitality likely to stave off the final 
extinction that is bonnd to come. Thetoials for the 
last five years will best explain the melancholy 
decadence : — 
1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 
Piculs Piculs Piculs Piculs PiouU 
41,820 39,227 25,002 24 .S96 23.910 
When we consider that in 1877 the export of 
Amoy Teas amounted to npwards of 90,000 pieuir, 
it will be seen what a serions change ba« 
come over this branch of oar trade. The reasons 
for this rapid wiping oat of an import- 
and local industry are not far to seek ; they have beea 
often dwelt upon and are well known to all. In the 
Report for ISSl it was stated that the quality of 
Amoy Tea was ba-l, and was year'? deteriorating ; by 
that time careless cultivation and dishonest packiug 
had alrearly killed the Amoy Coogou tra'le, and though 
loral Oolongs were then still in a'most as great 
demand as ever, a combination of canses were at 
work which soon began to prejudicially affect Oo- 
lones as well. When the cultivation of the rameclaaa 
ot Tea was d'^veloped in North Formosa, Amoy 
Oblongs lost their hold on the American market. 
The new plantations turned out leaf ot finer fltvonr 
and of better finish than the old ground, exbaaeted 
and b^dly tended a? it was ; and whilst, on the one 
hand, the original poverty of the Amoy cultivators 
p-evented them from spending extra labour on the 
necessary improveme.'it of plant and soil so as 
to produce a better paying article, their dwind- 
ling profits year by year compelled them, 
on the other haid, to retrench in the very directions 
that Btill further diminished the quality and v^lue of 
their product. So the vicious circle went on, van- 
ishing profits making improved cultivation less and 
less possible, and increased faultiness, in the cultiva- 
tion making the leaf less and less valuable, until now 
Amoy Oolongs are said to be hardly worth the cost 
of shipment. Badly handicapped as they also are 
with a high rate of taxation and a heavy cost of 
transportation over a difficult and imperfectly deve- 
loped route from the interior — a combination of ex. 
penses amounting to something like 34 per cent on 
the original value, — the wonder is that;, with yearly 
increasing quantities of better and chaaper produce 
from other conntries to compete against, their ex-; 
istence as an article of export has been sd long main- 
tained. There will probably always be a demand for 
